


Aftercare

by ladyoneill



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Caning, Dom/sub, M/M, Punishment, Safewords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/pseuds/ladyoneill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Human and still struggling with that, Castiel feels the need to be punished for his multitude of sins and Dean is willing, but Cas doesn't understand why, afterwards, Dean takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftercare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stoatsandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoatsandwich/gifts).



> This turned into much more of a look into Cas' mind and motivations than I planned. There's very little actual punishment. It's mostly talking and trying to figure things out. In my mind, Dean's done this before. Also, Heaven sucks (as Dean says). I hope I fulfilled the request and kept away from the 'don't wants'. Sorry no Sam! It was better for him not to be there. Disclaimer: I have no personal knowledge of scening or Dom/sub, but I've been writing it for a very long time, so hopefully nothing is too glaringly out of place.
> 
> Set in the current season except Cas wasn't asked to leave the bunker.

He doesn't understand why, after, Dean touches him so gently, cleans him up, holds him. He doesn't ask for that. He asks for pain and punishment. That, he understands. He has suffered much over the eons of his existence, from routine chastisements to brutal torture. He understands pain.

He doesn't understand care.

But, when Dean agreed to the punishment, he insisted on this as well. He's very serious about it. It's not something he would have learned in Hell. It's not something he would have experienced himself. 

So, why?

It isn't until before their fourth session that he finds the nerve to ask him.

~~~~~

Dean's cleaning his guns when Castiel cautiously takes a seat at the table. He never knows if he's imposing, so he's hesitant and just waits to see if Dean will speak first.

He does. "Sam's gone for a Wal-mart run." It's a signal, letting the former angel know they have over two hours before he returns, the nearest Wal-mart being nearly sixty miles away from the bunker.

Castiel rests his hands on the table, staring at the bitten cuticles and one ragged nail. So much about being human takes care. He has to think about whether or not he brushed his teeth this morning. He's still not used to flossing.

"Cas? Do you need this today?" It's never a matter of want, always of need, and Castiel can feel that need crawling like ants over his skin.

Lifting his eyes to Dean's solemn face, he nods, but, when the other man starts to rise, he reaches out and stops him with a hand barely touching his wrist. "May I ask something first?"

"Cas, dude, this was all your idea. It's all for you. You can ask me anything you want."

That actually makes him think of something else, but he pushes it aside for the moment. This issue has been confusing him since their first time. "Why do you take care of me afterwards?"

Dean actually looks confused, then scrubs his hand over his face and shakes his head. "It's what you do, what a good person does." He never refers to either of them by the customary terminology and Castiel doesn't care so he doesn't ask him to.

"I don't understand."

"What? But...Cas, you asked me to punish you. I can do that, but aftercare is just as important."

"Aftercare." He mulls over the word. It makes sense, but he's still confused. "We had none of that in Heaven. Just discipline and pain as lessons."

"Heaven sucks," Dean replies shortly. "And, okay, maybe angel bodies can take it, but human bodies need the recovery time. There's this thing called sub space." He shakes his head. "I don't know the ins and outs of it, I just know it works. You have to come out of it carefully. I've seen it done wrong and it's not pretty."

"But, that shouldn't matter. The punishment is all."

"It's not. Not on Earth. Look, what do you feel when I hurt you?"

"Pain." Castiel gives him a confused look. That's the only answer.

"Not the physical."

Dean's look of discomfort almost amuses Castiel. "You wish to speak of emotions?"

"No, but we're obviously on different pages here."

Mind going back to his earlier thought, he turns the question on Dean. "What do you feel when you punish me?"

"It's not about me."

"I feared, at first, that it would bring back memories of Hell," he says slowly.

"Difference between torture and what we do. It's not a trigger for me. I...You're not the first..." He flushes and Castiel feels oddly pleased by it.

"That's obvious. You're too skilled, but I do want to know what you, as you say, get out of this. At first I thought you would simply take your anger out on me and I was fine with that, but that's not it."

"I'm not angry with you anymore, Cas," Dean sighs. "We've talked about this."

"I can no longer easily tell when you lie."

Rolling his eyes, Dean crosses his arms over his chest in a defensive posture. "I'm a simple guy, Cas. I don't need to examine my feelings. I don't have any. You need this; I'll do it. Simple."

Castiel sighs in surrender and rises to his feet. Sam will return soon enough. "I'll go prepare."

Face going solemn again, Dean nods.

*****

There's a room hidden in one of the corners of the lowest level that was probably used for interrogation, but Dean outfitted it for their use, building some of the equipment, and dragging in a bed. At first, that confused Castiel. He was unaware there would be a sexual component and that concerned him, for Dean, not himself. He is willing to be punished anyway the other man sees fit.

So, that first time, when Dean took him down from the cross and led him shaking and sore to the bed, Castiel expected to have his first sexual experience. Instead, he got held and petted, soft words he never thought to hear from brash Dean were murmured to him, and it felt...good.

As the cane lands for the fifth time, criss-crossing the other blows on his back, and he hisses in pain, he thinks about this sub space and aftercare and it still doesn't make any sense. Feeling good shouldn't be a part of this.

"Cas," Dean growls, "Stop thinking and let yourself go. This isn't going to work if you don't sink."

Sink?

Another blow and he jerks forward with a cry, the chains attached to the leather wrist cuffs rattling loudly in the stone room. Three more, and it just hurts. The pain is good, but, he's so confused.

As Castiel breathes through the pain radiating from his back, he realizes Dean has stopped, and there's a moment of panic. He's not ready for it to be over. But then there are hands on his shoulders and the cloth of Dean's shirt brushing the welts, and he hisses again.

"Where are you, Cas?"

"In...in the room, on the cross."

"How do you feel?"

"I hurt."

"Where is your head?"

"A top my body?" It's a question, because he's bewildered. Dean has never asked him questions outside of whether or not he needs them to stop or use his safe word, a concept Castiel still doesn't understand. There should be nothing safe about this.

"Okay, let's try something else." Dean sounds frustrated and Castiel wants to cringe from him. Instead he just closes his eyes and waits for more pain, but what he gets is another question. "Why am I punishing you?"

"Because I asked you to." Oh. Something clarifies in his mind. "I have done so much wrong--from rebelling against my brethren, to working with Crowley, to murdering my Father's worshipers and so many of my brothers and sisters. I opened Purgatory and freed the leviathan. I let myself be used by Naomi. I...I betrayed you," he whispers as a strange pain grows in his chest, worse than any Dean has ever meted out to him.

"You betrayed me," Dean repeats flatly. "You hurt me, Cas. So, you think I should be the one to hurt you back."

"Yes."

"To punish you."

"Yes," he chokes out because, along with the pain, he is feeling baffling sorrow and horror as he remembers all he's done.

Tears sting his eyes and he squeezes them shut. He has never cried.

He doesn't know how.

"Cas, I'm not a big talker, you know that, but I do know that whatever I do to your body is nothing compared to what you're doing to yourself."

"I don't understand," he whimpers as a tear slides down his cheek.

"You're punishing yourself. There's a pain inside you, not a physical one. It gets so bad you come to me and I get it out for you by hurting you. You need to recover from that. That's the aftercare part."

That...starts to make sense. There are times, when Sam is here and they can't do this, when he feels like he's going to crawl out of his skin. He has to go for a run, push his body past its limits, push his mind to exhaustion so he stops thinking, to feel any relief. Today he was on the edge of having to do this but then Sam left and Dean offered.

"Humans are very complex."

Dean snorts and places one hand on his cheek, turning his face to him. "Do you want to continue?"

He truly thinks about it for a minute. "Yes. I still feel...wrong."

There's a small smile on the other man's face and he nods and moves away to fetch the cane again. "I want you to tell me when you feel right, okay?"

"Okay."

Castiel never speaks much during these punishments, because angels were not allowed to give consent or ask to stop. Begging was beneath them. They were to suffer in silence and it would end when someone else decided it was time.

It's so very different for humans, but he's beginning to understand why that's not a bad thing.

When the next blow hits, high on his shoulders, more tears stream down his cheeks, hot and wet, and he realizes that helps. He's always restrained them, like he's restrained his mind firmly in the pain and what was happening to his body. That's why the gentleness afterwards, while making him feel good, confused him more. He never let go.

More blows fall, rhythmically, spaced evenly apart, eliciting cries of pain from him, but, finally, it's too much. It's been too much before, but he didn't believe he had the right to stop it.

For the first time, Castiel mumbles his safe word.

The beating stops and he slumps in his bonds, panting harshly, the pain in his body all he can feel.

Also, for the first time, he doesn't realize he's been taken down from the cross, moved to the bed, until he blinks up at Dean from where he lays on his stomach as the other man strokes his arm and his face, over and over again.

"You back with me?" Dean smiles softly.

"I...yes...I still don't understand."

"Where did you go, Cas?"

After thinking for several minutes, he realizes he doesn't remember. There was only pain. That's the only answer. "Into the pain."

"And now?"

"Out of it?" He's still not really sure about this.

"Good."

"Are there books that will help me make sense of this?"

Dean chuckles but never stops stroking him. "Yeah. We'll order some. Sorry I didn't think about how this is different from what you're used to."

"It's not your fault. I'm still...so new to being human with all these feelings."

"Yeah, we got a lot of those. Hell, I've been human for thirty five years and I'm still confused most of the time. We just have to muddle through." 

Castiel watches as Dean bends down to look at his marked back. "Let's try something new. How about a bath and then I'll put some cream on those?"

"Is that a part of this aftercare?"

"Can be. Plus, it's pretty damn hard to reach welts on your back by yourself." 

"That sounds...nice." It does. A warm bath has become one of his favorite things. It will sooth the aches. "But shouldn't the pain linger for the lesson to make an impact?"

"It's not going anywhere for a couple days," Dean chuckles, but then goes solemn again. "The punishment's over for now, right? Your need for it?"

He thinks for a minute, then nods, and Dean smiles again.

*****

Later, after the bath and the cream rubbed in so gently, after they've ordered some books, after Sam's return, Castiel sits carefully at the table watching Dean making dinner. His back aches, the shirt rubs a bit against the welts, and making any sudden movement brings a sharp throb that makes him grit his teeth, but, despite the physical pain, he feels good.

Relaxed.

Balanced.

His mind is at ease. He feels welcomed by his friends. Not a burden. Not accepted reluctantly.

Whether or not Dean has forgiven him, or if Castiel can accept any forgiveness, isn't something he can address yet, but he knows he feels better than he has since he became human.

He's still confused, just not as much.

For the first time, Castiel realizes things are getting better.

Dean smiles at him and he smiles back, then rises to his feet to help by setting the table.

It's good to be a part of something, to be useful, to be...family?

End


End file.
